4 Billion World Phone Subscribers

The fact that the telecom industry has been blooming over the past period is nothing surprising, but the U.N. telecommunications agency has reached a round number. There are currently 4 billion world subscribers, as a result of a huge increase over the past period.

Back in 1996, there were fewer than 1 billion fixed-line and mobile phone subscribers in the world. The number of mobile subscriptions has gone sky-rocket over the past years, more than doubling the number of fixed-line subscribers.

More than 60 percent of the world's mobile subscribers are in developing countries. This makes Brazil, China and India stand as countries where the developing rate has been highest of all others. Almost 200 million more mobile subscribers have been added to the global total in the first three months of this year by China and India alone.

"There's also been significant growth in broadband services, where nearly 280 million broadband subscribers have been added in the past six years alone", said Bogdan-Martin. "Fixed-line broadband overtook dial-up Internet access subscribers in 2005, and the numbers of wireless broadband subscribes are also growing", she further added.

This technological development also asks for improved networks that could be capable of supporting the services that even the most evolved handsets have to offer. Next generation networks are capable of bringing services such as television and "voice over" Internet long-distance phone calls.

The developing countries account for most of this increase in subscribers' number. Aside from the existing ones, Africa also shows great potential and also receives great encouraging from the U.N. telecommunications agency to continue in its development. The report also came to the conclusion that more than 1 billion people across the world currently use the Internet. These round numbers sound like landmarks reached by the companies offering this type of services.